Radschool

Newsletter

Vol 11

Page 3

We had this photo of Brat-Land in Vol 11, but we didn’t see the brat up the tree and it was only recently that some-one brought it to our attention….Can any-one put a name to the climber, and what was he doing...

Try sticking you head out the window of a normal aeroplane….it’d blow off.

Apology.

A few issues ago we ran a photo of Alec Young who we said was the leader of the ill-fated RAAF aerobatic team of Vampires that crashed near Sale. John Griffiths wrote in to say:- 

“I think you were given the  wrong information about Alec Young. He was not the leader of the team and I know his wife would be upset to hear that, as it was reasonably supposed that for whatever reason the leader lead the others into the ground and evidence at the time suggested that Alec had realised the danger and started to pull out but did not make it.”  

Thanks John for setting us straight—and we unreservedly apologise to Mrs Young if she saw and was upset by our previous incorrect article.

We had the photo above in our last issue, and asked if anyone had any info on it. Unbelievably as it may sound, while at the 38Sqn “do” at Amberley in late August, we ran into Peter Franks who told us he knew a bit about the photo because he was flying the aeroplane. Peter wrote to us and said:-  firstly, the photograph in Vol 11 is printed in reverse, (it’s correct above) the hangars should appear on the left of the picture. - the photo was taken in 1978, either 23rd or 24th May 1978. I was the pilot and the nav. was probably Greg "Boggie" Smith (then Plt Off, now a Wg Cdr). There is a possibility that the nav. was John Riches, as my log book isn't altogether clear on this. - Yes, the picture is "ridge" and was taken at Biak in Irian Jaya, during photo survey operations.

The hangars in the picture were unused (and had been for some time when the survey operation commenced). We occupied 2 or 3 of them to house 2 Canberras plus photo survey stuff, and admin/support etc. - the "track" the Canberra is flying over between the hangars and the scrub was, in fact, a taxiway from the runway to the hangars we were using - a little irregular because of long disuse before we got there. - the speed of the Canberra was probably about 350 to 360 knots (the IAS limit with the wing tip tanks on was 365 knots). - the picture was published in the book about 2 squadron: "Highest Traditions" by John Bennett - ex Canberra Navigator. The photograph was supplied to John by Rick Owen (now Gp Capt), another "old" Canberra Navigator, but a "boggie" at the time. The original photograph and some copies were only made generally available in January 1980, when I left the RAAF - there had been a limited availability before that - I didn't even see a copy until I left! I'm told a copy can be seen at the RAAF Museum at Pt. Cook. - I don't do beat-ups like that any more - too old (!!) and sensible (??) now. I hope this is helpful. Best Regards.

Thanks Peter, and this is Peter when he was flying Caribous in 1969. But we have a question... “If a young bloke does a beat up in his own $10,000 car they call him a hoon, but if he does it in the Gov’t’s $50M aeroplane everyone thinks it’s great—why’s that??

Enthusiastic crowd line up to have a look inside the mighty Caribou. The old girl doesn't look all that different from the outside, but inside it’s a different story. Gone are all those nasty heavy old sets like the ARN21 Tacan which weighed a ton. Now—not a valve in sight, all the old stuff has been replaced with miniature PCB stuff, completely foreign to a lot of us. The HF set is now not much bigger than this magazine, and long gone is the 180L2 coupler, that magical thing that somehow used to tune the HF antenna to the desired frequency, and which absolutely no-one could work out how or why it worked, or how to fix the damn thing when it broke.